Acacia Salinger

Name: Acacia Salinger

Gender: Female

Age: 17

Grade: 12th

School: Bayview Secondary School

Hobbies and Interests: Tennis, cheerleading, cooking, poetry, photography.

Appearance: Acacia has a typically wholesome look about her. She has a heart shaped face with a dimple that appears in her left cheek when she smiles. Her lips are fairly thin, bow and arrow shaped, and cover straight, white teeth. She has a straight nose and high cheekbones. Her eyes are big and round, though she squints in the sun, and a sea green colour. Above them are fair, well plucked eyebrows. Her hair is naturally blonde, lightened somewhat by artificial highlights, and is straight, though Acacia often puts waves in it herself for a softer look. It just brushes her shoulder blades when she wears it down and doesn't alter it in any way, though it is frequently tied up in a high ponytail when she is undertaking sport of some kind. At the time of kidnap she was wearing it down with a dark red alice band, but with multicoloured hair bobbles adorning her arms.

She sports a scar behind her left ear, from when she fell backwards as a child and cracked her head open on the table behind her in a moment of unusual clumsiness. She has a long thin neck, always adorned with a necklace of some kind. Her body is best described as lean, she stays slim thanks to tennis and cheerleading, her arm muscles are epecially strong due to playing tennis for much of her life. She boasts a flat stomach, which she has no qualms about showing off with skimpy clothes. Her chest is fairly unimpressive, small though well formed.

On the day of the kidnap she was wearing a double layer of long vest tops, the bottom one being orange and the top one dark red in colour and a light blue cardigan. On her bottom half she wore dark blue jeans with brand new nike sneakers, still shockingly white in colour with light blue laces and nike tick. Additionally she was wearing a watch with a black canvas strap (her "sports watch"), and a gold dog tag necklace.

Biography: Her parents are Lewis and Katie Salinger, a still happily married couple. Lewis is the Deputy Chief of Police for Ramsey County, Minnesota, and Katie is a stay at home mom, though she makes some income writing articles for various magazines and selling homemade greeting cards. Acacia was their second and last child, arriving four years after her brother David. Having long since graduated high school, David is a private in the US Army, currently posted in Iraq on a 6 month tour of duty, leaving his desperately worried family behind, trying to carry on as normal.

When Acacia was born, the family lived in upstate Indiana, the homeplace of both her parents, in the town where Katie had been born. There they has a comfortable family life, in a big house in the suburbs. When she was just over a year old, concerned by their daughter's excessive thirst, they took her to the doctors, where she was quickly diagnosed with type one diabetes. There was a sudden adjustment that had to be made to their life, scheduling hospital appointments around trying to settle David in at elementary school didn't come easy, but they muddled through together. Life appeared to be going okay. At age four she went along to the kiddies tennis club, along with a few of her friends from kindergarten and their mommies, and she stayed there until she left Indiana. Acacia was given a cheap camera for her sixth birthday, about the time when she insisted that it was her life's destiny to be a wildlife photographer, and classing her family as wildlife, she went about documenting the lives of those around her with alarming honesty and innocence.

When Acacia was eight, and David twelve, Katie's sister, Julia, suffered a massive traffic accident, and was rendered pretty much incapable of looking after herself. For a time the family moved to Long Island so that they could be with her in her dying days.

These dying days ended up lasting for a period of five years, during which time the family rented out their home in Indiana whilst living in the townhouse that Julia had bought with her husband (who was killed in the same car accident) with Julia, who was entirely dependent on her sister and ever-patient husband to care for her. Acacia liked living on Long Island, their tow had excellent sporting facilities, and it was there that she really began to develop her love of tennis, there was a club just a short walk from Julia's house and during her first summer there she signed up for an advanced course and the rest was history. At around the same time she took up a pre-teen cheerleading club in middle school for a short while. Her aunt, wheelchair bound, taught Acacia the rudimentaries of cooking, and the two would bake cakes together on random afternoon when both of them were bored. Additionally, with the new scents that Long Island brought, and the beauty of living so close to the water, Acacia's wildlife photography developed into scenic, and there are albums full of empty beaches and stormy grey skies.

Five years later Julia passed away peacefully in her sleep, and Acacia found her the next morning when she took in a cup of tea that had been prepared by her mother in the basement kitchen. It turned out that there had been a slowly manifesting brain hemorrhage, which had never been picked up due to Julia refusing to have a scan in the years since the accident. Following her aunts death and subsequent funeral, the family packed up and moved again, Lewis applied for a transfer, randomly to the first place that was available, and that place was St Paul.

By this time, David was sick of moving around all the time (though it was only twice), and signed up to join the army when he graduated from high school just to spite their Mom, who had become increasingly overprotective since the death of Julia. Acacia settled into the new town fairly well, she relished the chance to start afresh, picking up tennis and cheerleading again. In her first couple of days of school in St Paul, she set herself up in a totally bizzarre way. She seemed to conform herself to the dumb blonde stereotype that she'd spent all her life trying to avoid, and somehow, she felt safe hiding behind that disguise. In St Paul she was just a moderately wealthy blonde cheerleader, who also happened to partake in tennis and gymnastics. Nobody knew about the cooking lessons with her now dead Auntie Julia, nobody knew about the high spec camera that nestled in her wardrobe, nobody even knew about the strange little one verse poems that she would sometimes partake to writing (usually in the form of a diary, describing her state of being at that time), nobody knew about Auntie Julia and her death and David could almost not exist.

Though sometimes Acacia wishes that she could display her true self, she is too afraid to let her true personality shine though, and for the time being, at least, is stuck the the precedent that she has set being the bimbo that she never wanted to be. She tends to find herself becoming withdrawn, though her affable nature and pleasant appearance ensured her fairly quick popularity on entering high school, she is generally nice to everyone, including those that others might look down upon. In the last couple of years she has become increasingly open about her history, most of her friends now know about their having moved around because of Aunt Julia, her liking of photography and skill in baking cakes. Acacia doesn't like keeping things from her peers, but if they don't ask generally she won't tell. Additionally, the mini poems are for her eyes only.

She is slightly spoilt, however; her parents buying her good nature with gifts as a child, and tends to expect everyone to treat her with the respect that she feels she deserves. Even at seventeen she is boisterous in her nature, happy to bounce around and physically move someone if they're in her way. When she bottles up her emotions, which she tends to do quite often, Acacia can get irritable, emotional (bursting into tears at the slightest provocation) and vengeful, a characteristic she never had when her life was carefree. Though she loves living in St Paul and the freedom that living in a town brings, Acacia has all her life yearned for the city and having always lived in the suburbs of towns that looked somewhat the same, she is bored, she needs change. Additionally, Acacia tends to form emotional attachments to people without due care about their wellbeing, she is like a limpet, and will cling to people she likes for as long as she can before letting go.

Advantages: She is pretty agile, and a fast runner from playing tennis (though she can only run in short bursts). Additionally, she is personable such that she can form allegiances quickly, and cute enough that someone might think twice before killing her. Her muscles are strong from tennis and playing sports. She's dealt with death before, which might be advantageous in some way. A good cook, she might be able to rustle something up with the limited resources. Additionally, as pretty much all the students at Bayview think she's just a bimbo, they might not be expecting anything from her. Disadvantages: She is intensely trusting of people and this could lead to her downfall if she trusts the wrong person. Acacia tends to put too much trust in her other people, and probably thinks she's stronger than she is, overestimating herself. She has pretty strong morals, and killing someone might be a little out of her reach. She's never been camping or actually slept outside, her outdoor experiences are always for a short while and subceded by a nice shower, she doesn't like getting her hands dirty. She's diabetic, if she loses her insulin she's at great risk of going into a ketoacidotic coma, and especially with the lack of regular habits on island, it'll be difficult for her to control her sugar levels.

Designated Number: Female Student no. 18

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Designated Weapon: FN Barracuda (.357) [x6 rounds]

Conclusion: G18 is either going to be quite interesting or quite boring. Let me further elaborate: She's either going to use that gun as it's meant to be used or fall into a diabetic coma and waste away until her death. I can see this going either way, but I do hope for a little gun-action, as do all viewers.

'The above biography is as written by Xylophonefairy. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: Xylophonefairy

Kills: Roman Jackson

Killed By: N/A, Escaped

Collected Weapons: FN Barracuda (assigned weapon)

Allies: Roman Jackson, Joss Joiner, Thea Kairos, Charlene Norris

Enemies: Alex Jackson

Mid-game Evaluation:

Post-Game Evaluation:

Memorable Quotes:
 * "Hi Mom," she said in a small voice. "It's me. Sorry I haven't been in contact much, it's been a bit crazy round here. People are-" her voice cracked slightly. "People are dying, and I'm trying not to be one of them. Anyway, just to let you know I'm okay and I haven't killed anyone yet. Give my love to Dad and David, and I'll see you someday."
 * "You've been brilliant," she whispered, allowing a few tears to fall freely, they were immediately wicked away by the earth. "Just brilliant. I couldn't have asked for a better person to spend the last four days with." She remembered the prayer. "I'll- I'll see you in Heaven, okay?"

Other/Trivia

 * Fifteen years after the game, Acacia lives in northern Iowa, is married to Tom (who she met at college) and has two children named Emma and Roman - as shown in her conclusion thread, where they visit Bayview's memorial to the students who died in v4.

Threads
Below is a list of threads that contain Acacia, in chronological order:

Pre-game:
 * Seclusion
 * The Limits of Human Endurance
 * We've Got Spirit, Yes We Do
 * Deuce
 * Decisions, Decisions
 * The Dance Must go on!

V4: Post-game
 * Orientation
 * Watch Your Step
 * Living In The Aftermath
 * Instinct
 * Fairytale of New York
 * Anthem for Doomed Youth
 * The Use of Common Sense is Authorized
 * Everyday is like Sunday
 * A Slight Change of Plans
 * What Goes Around Comes Around
 * One Day Like This (conclusion)

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Acacia Salinger. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''
 * Acacia's another good rescued kid. Interestingly, Acacia's high point comes earlier in her run than many of the other rescued characters. She chooses to end a friend's life at his request, against the wishes of his sister. This is a setup that absolutely guarantees drama. I think the delay of that reunion was a very interesting (and ultimately successful) choice. The island sees so many revenge-based showdowns, but here the reunion didn't occur until everyone was safe. This is important because it removes the option for lethal force, and also because it throws Acacia's own choice into a tougher light; after all, that both she and Alex survived proves that the situation was not quite as hopeless as they expected.

So, overall, Acacia's a good character. She had slow scenes, like many V4 kids, but was a consistent read, especially as she spent a lot of time in groups where she felt like a natural fit. We didn't get a ton of her after the game, but we did get a final thread that was a lot more closure than many rescued kids got, so I can safely say her story feels complete. - MurderWeasel
 * Unsurprisingly, Acacia’s promisingly written profile translates into a very engaging pregame. Her interactions with the students around her are not only believable and realistic, but interesting on a level not often seen in that stage. A lot of the time, pregame threads are fairly messy, with characters struggling somewhat to find their voice, but that’s not the case here. Her narrative made me feel very much invested in the conflict between her reputation as a beautiful cheerleader and inner desire for people to see past her body and treat her like any other normal person. It was interesting to see her dissatisfaction with this situation contrasted with her often unwittingly slipping into the mask that others have created for her to wear. The single subtle reference to SOTF continuity in her penultimate pregame thread grounded her in the setting without seeming like breaking the fourth wall, though it’s a shame that the thread was apparently never finished. Overall, this was a fairly good start that left me very hopeful for her island threads.

Right off the bat, her time on the island starts out strong with an attempt to get one final message home to her family. Roman getting shot opens up a lot of room for a wide variety of emotions, and xylophonefairy does a good job of representing the emotional turmoil that Acacia goes through as she watches Roman’s condition deteriorate. The scene where she takes it upon herself to mercy kill him is very well done, with her final post in that thread and the following one creating an emotionally touching scene where she reflects on what she has done and where she will go from there. The killing has a massive impact on her character on there on out, with her growing despair at the loss of so many friends rendered very well throughout her posts. Every interaction she has with other students on the island is interesting and believable, making good use of the relationships established in pregame. The internal conflict established early on takes an interesting turn when she realizes that she has fully shed her flirty, cheerleader persona, though that which remains ends up making her no more happy with herself than before.

Her final post on the island is of the utmost quality, making good use of her backstory and her experiences on the island to describe her thoughts as she is being rescued, and as with most posts in that thread, really connected with me emotionally in a way that doesn’t often happen when reading SOTF posts. Her postgame threads were short but sweet, and neatly tie up all the loose ends left behind in her story and give it a fitting emotional conclusion. After reading her final thread, I had to stop for a bit to reflect on what I read. It was very touching and well written, and I came away fairly satisfied from following her story to completion.

Overall, her story is a rather slow burn, with little action, though it is definitely no worse for that. No matter what happens to her, she manages to hang on to her humanity the entire time, keeping the reader cognizant that she is a kid in a desperate situation, with no strange gimmicks to force her to stand out. Her character is well written, and makes good use of the plot hooks in her backstory as well as the relationships she develops throughout the game. I would absolutely recommend that people give her story a look. You won’t be disappointed. -Skraal